You could say that the stage is Kelsey Corder’s home, but when she set foot on the ArcBest Performing Arts Center stage this weekend, she came home in more than one way.

Corder is in her second season dancing professionally for American Midwestern Ballet in Omaha, Neb. While she earned her career training and experience at Louisville Ballet Studio Company, she originally entered the art form at Western Arkansas Ballet. She returned to Arkansas as the Sugar Plum Fairy this weekend in Western Arkansas’ 39th Annual Production of “The Nutcracker” in Fort Smith.

The Sugar Plum Fairy, “the benevolent ruler of the Kingdom of Sweets,” greets Clara and the Nutcracker Prince upon their entry during Act II, according to Western Arkansas Ballet. She and her Cavalier Casey Kelley, also of American Midwest Ballet, performed the grand pas de deux, the culmination of the iconic holiday ballet.

“A lot of times, we measure the talent based on what they do outside of Fort Smith — how far they go — but we really don’t know what that talent looks like until they come home and perform, and a lot of times they don’t get a chance to do that,” said Jared Mesa, artistic director for Western Arkansas Ballet.

In 20 years of dance instruction, perhaps two or three students have reached the level that Corder has. Of his personal students, she is the only one to have achieved going from high school to a tier two ballet company — nearly straight to the top, he said — then on upward from there.

When Mesa was promoted to that position earlier this year, bringing Corder back for this performance was the very first thing he wanted to do.

“Kelsey is such a good dancer and role model as far as how to do your heart as well,” Mesa said. “It’s important for me to show Fort Smith what we at Western Arkansas know about our dancers — they’re so talented.”

“Growing up at that studio, watching them bring in guest artists every year as I decided that this was something, a career I always wanted to pursue, that was like the lifelong dream,” Corder said from Omaha by Zoom. “The ‘I’ve made it’ type of thing, to be able to come back to the place that I grew up to be able to do a lead, principal role in one of the most iconic ballets that almost everybody has heard of, even if they haven’t gotten to see it.

“It just feels like such a big, full circle moment.”

Emily Wright, who went to primary school with Kelsey, has long admired her friend’s unwavering commitment to every goal she sets her mind on.

“I’ve always known she was meant to be on stage, but over the past five years, she has faced challenges that most people wouldn’t have the strength to endure,” Wright said. “Every accomplishment of hers has come with its own set of difficulties, yet she handles each one with incredible grace and resilience.”

Jonmarie Johnson danced alongside Corder at the Louisville Ballet as a studio company dancer. They met in fall 2021, when the company strictly required wearing masks to prevent the spread of covid-19. It was Corder’s energetic personality that projected through the face covering and quickly hooked her into a close friendship.

“Kelsey is known for being thrown into any role and crushing it,” Johnson said by email. “She absorbs choreography quicker than anyone I’ve ever worked with, and sets the bar high for everyone else. She is committed to her craft, and her drive for excelling in this art form is unparalleled.”

24 HOURS RELUCTANCE

Like so many aspiring ballerinas, Kelsey Corder began when her mother signed her up for dance classes at age 4.

Her mother Lisa thought it would be good for her socially, since she hadn’t attended daycare to that point, and had considered enrolling her in gymnastics. As a coach’s kid, she thought Kelsey would one day want to be a cheerleader. But young Kelsey was very small for her age.

The plan was a couple years of ballet, then she could move on to gymnastics and other sports, like basketball — the chosen sport of her father’s family.

“As we drove from Alma to Fort Smith on the day of her first class, Kelsey cried and pouted the whole way and said ‘Why are you making me do this? I do not want to go!” Lisa Corder recalled. She assured her it would be fun and she would like it, but Kelsey insisted she was not interested. “That was the only time I ever had to encourage her to attend class, rehearsals, performances — anything related to dance.”

But then Kelsey pouted all the way home when she learned she had to wait an entire week before she could return. It was obvious, Lisa said, that she loved dance from day one.

“Ever since my first day I fell in love with it and have loved it ever since,” Kelsey Corder said.

The first year she was enrolled, Kelsey was cast as the Cherubim in the Nutcracker. She was dressed as an angel and rode across the stage in the sleigh with Clara. Lisa remembers standing in the wings, holding young Kelsey as they waited for the sleigh to go on stage.

“I remember watching her more than the show itself,” Lisa Corder said. “The complete awe and amazement in her eyes was so evident. She was completely mesmerized by what she was seeing.”

She wondered then if Kelsey would stay in dance and if she would ever reach the level that she’s now achieved, but she didn’t have to wait long for indications that she was on the right track.

On several occasions, Kelsey was moved up to a higher class before a year was complete, and Lisa began to feel that her interests were very well aligned with her genetics, having both a father and grandfather who were talented athletes.

Among Kelsey’s very first memories of ballet is a moment of being on stage during a spring recital at age 4 or 5. She was enrolled in Creative Movement, essentially “baby ballet.” They were all wearing pink, and since it was their second year in practice, they were finally in tutus. Kelsey was excited for the privilege to wear them.

In the middle of the performance, “we were supposed to change lines,” she recalled. The front line would move to the back and the back line would move forward so that everybody would get their chance to be in the front.

When it was her group’s turn, Kelsey ran to the front line. As she turned to the side, she discovered that none of her friends had joined her. “I was the one (who said) ‘Come on, we’re going this way, it’s our turn now.’”

That happened more often than not.

“She was always the one who remembered the choreography,” Lisa Corder said. “When others would sometimes be twirling in their skirts or playing with the person beside them, Kelsey would always be focused and on task.”

When Kelsey got to the age where choice of extracurriculars grew more serious and it became clear that ballet was going to require much more of a time commitment, “it was a very easy decision over any other sports or other activities I had been involved in,” Kelsey Corder said. “From the moment I started, I knew I loved it. I never wanted to stop, and here I am 20 years later still doing it.”

What stood out to Jared Mesa about the young ballet dancer was her level of athleticism, which he said helped her to excel quickly. That paired well with her dedication solely to dance.

“A lot of kids like to do many things, be in multiple activities,” Mesa said. But “her primary was dancing at the studio, she didn’t do anything else.”

PUT IN THE WORK

To become a professional in the ballet world, Kelsey Corder said, takes a lot of work, a lot of time and a lot of sacrifices.

At about age 12, she began attending summer intensives, ballet training programs that are usually five or six weeks long. She and other dancers stayed in a dorm or group housing and spent the summer dancing “all day, everyday” as they honed techniques and worked on other things they’d do at their home studio year round.

These were ideal times for Kelsey. She got to focus solely on dance without having to factor in school, homework and other matters. The trade off was that the schedule for intensives was much more intense than ordinary studio work.

Growing up, Kelsey’s friends would invite her to whatever they were planning for Saturday night, and each time her answer was the same: she had dance class or rehearsal. But to her, it wasn’t so difficult to miss out on those ordinary kid and teen moments, because she loved dance that much.

“That was never something I wanted to miss,” Corder said. “I never wanted to give up my dance classes or my training for like one simple Saturday out with my friends. I always loved being in the studio.

“It takes a lot of hard work and commitment to really go all the way through the professional track.”

But Corder knew she wanted to go for it. She spent countless hours outside of rehearsal and scheduled studio times, doing strengthening exercises to keep her body in shape. Now that she’s a little older, she incorporates physical therapy to keep the practice from taking such a toll on her body.

Corder got a good taste of what professional company life would be like at Western Arkansas Ballet during her junior high and high school years. It’s a pre-professional company and you can audition when you’re 11 years old. That’s what Kelsey did.

When she joined the company, that meant Corder had to be there Monday through Friday and sometimes Saturdays every week.

“So you would spend a lot of time with people your age group … and get pretty close to (them),” she said.

In that time they would have two or three classes, including a modern class and the optional jazz/tap dance.

Company rehearsals were each Tuesday and Thursday to prepare for performances like the Nutcracker or competitions like Regional Dance America (RDA) against other schools and companies across the country.

Saturdays were blocked off for Nutcracker rehearsals with the whole academy.

The mix of learning, training and long rehearsal hours was a look into a professional’s life, because “your days as a professional are mostly spent in rehearsal versus in class every day,” Corder said.

EN POINTE

The biggest moment of a young ballet dancer’s early life is achieving that coveted milestone of getting to work en pointe, to be cleared to wear the proper shoes and dance on your toes, not just the ball of your foot. Kelsey Corder got her shoes when she was 11.

“That’s always the biggest, everybody always looks forward to getting pointe shoes,” she said. “It’s always a huge milestone.”

Corder had taken a pre-pointe class at WestArk to strengthen the necessary muscles in her feet and ankles to go en pointe. Part of the task was simply getting used to the brand new feeling, changing her balance in a completely different way.

It takes a while, Corder said. “Getting to the point where you’re comfortable enough, your teacher trusts you enough and your pointe work is strong enough to be on stage and perform all those things with the pressure of having an audience is a really big step.”

That same year she earned her first solo in the Nutcracker as one of the Harlequin dolls. All her recitals to that point had been group dances, and this new role gave Corder her first experience partnering on the stage.

“I can remember that one being very special, it was a very big deal in my head,” Corder said. Being the only girl dancing on stage, down at the front, was a completely different ballgame.

Within a year, Corder was off to her first summer intensive. At two weeks long, it was a good introduction to being away from home that allowed her to dip her toes into a professional schedule.

Once Kelsey got into the five and six week intensives, she was off to those given by the Kansas City Ballet, Texas Ballet Theater and Burklyn Ballet Theatre. Back at home, she was cast as Alice in “Alice in Wonderland,” her first role that kept her on stage for hours.

“After every rehearsal, I was writing (every detail) down in my notebook to make sure I wouldn’t forget anything because it was a lot of material to have,” Corder said. Jared Mesa and Brianna coached her through the process at Western Arkansas Ballet.

As Kelsey progressed, Mesa saw that she understood the nuances required for being a high level dancer, which required not simply moving in time to the music, but being an actor simultaneously, and being able to accept criticism and use it constructively.

“As a dancer, a young one especially, you’re going into the studio all the time and have somebody in the room who is looking at how you hold your foot, how you’re standing on this leg, how this arm looks and you have to be very conscious of those things,” he said. “I could see Kelsey was taking to heart the things we were saying about technique and applying those things as quickly as she could to make her dance better.”

Before her time was up at Western Arkansas, Corder would do a solo as Mirliton, perform as Snow Queen and also Dew Drop — all the soloist principal roles of the Nutcracker and milestone achievements for a professional in the making.

BEING ON YOUR LEG

Kelsey Corder auditioned for a couple of colleges and a couple of companies during her senior year of high school to see what her options would be for carving out a career in dance. Among them were the University of Oklahoma dance program and the Louisville Ballet.

It required auditioning, of course, but of a more stressful order than the average audition for individual productions.

“They give you a number that you have to safety pin to your leotard,” Corder said. “They don’t know everybody and sometimes it’s hundreds of people in all of these auditions, a very nerve wracking experience. And you want it so bad, so you have to do well. It’s a little bit of a pressured atmosphere.”

When she got accepted to OU, Corder hadn’t heard from any of her company auditions and figured it was her only path. She knew it was a good program, and so submitted her letter of intent on a Thursday evening. Not even 24 hours later, while she was at WAB studio, Kelsey got the email that changed the direction of her life.

“From Louisville Ballet, ‘We’ve accepted you into our studio company, we’d love to have you’” she recalled. “I remember freaking out and all my friends were around and I was like ‘Well now what do I do?’”

Corder retracted her letter of intent to OU and set her heart on Louisville. The professional company had accepted her into their studio company, a training program akin to an intern or apprenticeship. She had made a prestigious cut.

When Corder arrived to Louisville, she brought plenty of confidence but soon, as she saw the level of talent and was immersed in that environment, she realized she was in the big leagues now and needed to put her head down and get to work. So she did.

“I switched mindsets,” she said. “From I’m going to have to work for it and it’s not just going to be handed (to me). It’s something I have to make for myself. It was just kind of eye opening; that I came from a small town, and I made it here, but now have to put in the work to stay here.”

Being in class with other dancers on the same level at the studio company was intense, Corder said, and among the hardest things she’s completed in her advanced career. After those classes, she would rehearse alongside the main company and was fully immersed in the professional setting.

It was full of highs and lows. She was cast in snow and flowers in their Nutcracker production, but then was cut from it and other things. But later, Corder got to perform in Balanchine’s iconic, well-loved “Serenade,” which is a big milestone for a lot of dancers.

“That was a really big moment being able to do that, especially so young and so early in my career,” she said. “I’d love the chance to do it again now that I’m more well established, but happy to say I at least got to do it once.”

The experience gave her a shot at wonderful choreography, but the opportunity to watch the older, more seasoned dancers while learning how to be in a professional company.

At the end of her first year in Louisville, the covid pandemic hit, moving dancers to ballet classes over Zoom. Corder would balance the laptop on a kitchen counter or chair and continue instruction in her apartment until they moved to a pods system, dancing with a small group and getting tested regularly to prevent the spread as much as possible.

In Corder’s third year, she began looking into auditions to secure a job once her training program was complete. Since most companies conduct them as an all-call, where auditions are set for a particular day and anyone can come, Corder would spend weekends traveling with her dance friends to the nearest ones, most of which were a four hour drive away in Chicago.

Still, some companies accept video auditions and if, based on the performance sent in, they think the dancer will fit in, they invite them to audition in person. After spending her Christmas break one year recording and editing her video, that’s how Corder got her spot at American Midwest Ballet, where she’s now in her second season.

Putting in four years at Louisville paid off. Corder became the one asked to step up and fill challenging roles.

When, at Louisville, someone got injured, “they called her to do this part (in Serenade) because they knew she was reliable, knew that she knew what she was doing because she paid attention and that learning this part was not going to be too stressful on her,” Mesa said.

Kelsey would go on to perform the Spanish in the Nutcracker and the Mirlitons and other challenging, high-level soloist roles before moving to American Midwest Ballet.

But a dancer’s work is never really done. Auditions are traditionally held January to March. While Corder and her colleagues are in season and rehearsing for shows, they spend weekends auditioning just to land the next job and be set for the future.

“I would do it all over again to end up where I am,” Corder said. “As crazy as it was.”